370 PHYLLOPNEUSTE SYLVICOLA. 



saw this favourite bird ; several were sporting on a row of tall 

 poplars in the garden ; the weather was very calm ; their song 

 was very distinct. It still rings in my ears, and I long for 

 the season when the Wood Wren will revisit his native place. 

 The young are fledged about the beginning of July." 



As a British bird, the Woodwren seems to have been first 

 noticed by White of Selborne, and afterwards by Montagu ; 

 but it was first described and figured by Mr Thomas Lamb, in 

 the second volume of the Transactions of the Linnaean Society, 

 p. 245. Part of that gentleman's account of it is as follows : 

 " It inhabits woods, and comes with the rest of the summer 

 warblers, and in manners is much the same, running up and 

 down trees in search of insects. I heard it first early in May, 

 in Whitenight's Park, near Reading ; it was then hopping 

 about on the upper branch of a very high pine, and having a 

 very singular and shrill note, it attracted my attention, being 

 very much like that of the Emberiza Miliaria (Linn.), but so 

 astonishingly shrill that I heard it at more than a hundred 

 yards distance : this it repeated once in three or four minutes. 

 I never heard these birds before last spring, and nevertheless I 

 have heard nine in the course of a month ; four in White- 

 nighfs Park, and five in my tour to the Isle of Wight, viz. 

 one in a wood at Stratfield Lea, one at East Stratton Park, two 

 in the New Forest, and one in a wood near Highclerc." A 

 more particular account was afterwards given by Montagu in 

 the fourth volume of the same work. 



Young. — When their plumage is perfect, the young can 

 scarcely be distinguished from their parents, their colours be- 

 ing the same, only of a lighter tint. 



Remarks. — This species is said to be common in the southern 

 and middle parts of the continent, and to extend as far north as 

 Sweden. It migrates southward from all these countries, from 

 the middle to the end of September. In Scotland it does not 

 renew its plumage previous to its departure, which is also the 

 case with the next species. 



